Google Expands Near BlackBerry Headquarters

It seems as though Google is about to expand their presence in Kitchener, Canada. Google's location from BlackBerry headquarters in Waterloo is a mere 16 minutes by car.

From Reuters:

...Google gets set to move into a new 185,000-square-foot space in Kitchener this fall. The office, some three times the size of its current space, will allow Google to vastly expand its 300-person workforce in the region.

Reuters also points out that this is happening while BlackBerry continues to pare down their workforce.

Sources familiar with the matter said that BlackBerry last week laid off roughly 200 staff on its hardware and design teams.
"Our intention is to reallocate resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities while driving toward sustainable profitability across all facets of our business," said a spokeswoman for BlackBerry in an email.

Hardware...and design teams... Great. But what about new handsets and they haven't launched "Venice" yet!?

The sources added the moves come after BlackBerry has completed all major hardware and design work on its widely anticipated new handset, code-named Venice. The device is widely expected to arrive in November and run on Google's Android platform, but come layered with BlackBerry security and productivity features.
BlackBerry, which is pivoting to focus more on software as it outsources more of the work around its hardware, declined to comment on the device.

Not exactly good news but we know BlackBerry continues to scoop up enterprise security companies to bolster its own. BlackBerry isn't going anywhere but hardware? We might be nearing the end of that unless BlackBerry puts a Venice in every house across the world.